


The Price of LoVe

by keelywolfe



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Underfell, Alternate Universe - Underswap, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Revenge, Spicyhoney - Freeform, Underfell Papyrus, Underswap Papyrus, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-26 15:53:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15004253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keelywolfe/pseuds/keelywolfe
Summary: The hospital smelled of antiseptic, strong and abrasive.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is based entirely around this lovely piece of artwork by cheapbourbon: http://cheapbourbon.tumblr.com/post/175096205849/alone
> 
> It's gorgeous and heartbreaking and you probably need to see it to entirely understand this. I almost put this in my drabble collection but the non-con aspect made me want to keep it separate from my mostly fluffy smuttiness.
> 
> That said, I like to keep all my writing on AO3 so there's a backup from tumblr, so here it is. Please, send the artist some love as well.

* * *

The hospital smelled of antiseptic, strong and abrasive. Edge’s boots clicked loudly on the tile as he walked through the corridors. Nurses walked past him, hurried and distracted, and by now none of them gave him a second glance. He was a known, something they’d seen time and again, and none of them could see what a Monster would to look at him. None of the humans would know.

He retraced steps he’d followed so many times in the past few days to a cracked open door. The room was darkened, the only light over a small basin in one corner, the faucet gleaming a mellow chrome. A curtain was half-drawn around the bed and the chair next to it was empty.

The bed’s occupant was asleep, resting on a mound of pillows. He looked smaller huddled beneath the heavy layer of blankets. They were never anything but bones but here in this sterile room, beneath blankets that had covered so many of the living and dying in the past, it had never seemed so obvious.

Edge could walk silently when he wanted. He sat down in the chair, watching him sleep. The doctors couldn’t tell them what had been done to him. Broken and scarred bones were obvious, but there was no telling what damage there was that couldn’t be seen. They were creatures of magic and magic kept its painful secrets.

_(“What did you do to him?”_

_Already dying, he grinned at Edge through a mouthful of dust, “Ask him.”)_

His hands were resting on top of the blankets, his wrists neatly wrapped in stark white bandages, hiding the wounds. Beneath them was a mass of scars and Edge remembered marrow-stained fingers, his wrists a mess of corroded bone, covered with flaking blackened marrow and the wet crimson of fresh.

He twitched suddenly as he slept, limbs jerking and his face tightened, choking on whimpers and his breathing shifting from easy calm to rising panic. 

Carefully, Edge laid a hand on his knee, over the blanket, “Papy?”

He’d reacted badly to every name they’d called him until Blue had come. Papy had been acceptable whereas even his own true name had left him with dilated eye lights and panicked breathing, cringing away from them all. 

At Edge’s touch, he jerked awake, scrambling away and muffling his scream with his own hands. In that unending moment between the unknown and recognition his eye lights held nothing but terror.

He’d never screamed, not even when Edge had found him chained in that basement; had only stared at Edge in a mixture of apathy and fear. There had been no recognition in his gaze; that had come later, much later.

"You’re safe,” Edge told him, softly. It was best to keep their voices low, they’d learned, and even Rus took great care to follow that. “Papy, you’re safe. It’s only me, it’s Edge. You’re safe.”

A gentle litany, as tender as a parent soothing their child. None of them had parents, they only had each other, and Edge was no such thing to him, but he could imagine. He could be that gentle, for him.

He looked at Edge, his eye lights slowly dwindling from wide panic to their normal soft points of light. One was prone to flickering, there was a crack spidering out from that socket but today it was steady, taking in Edge.

“your lv is higher.”

His voice was cracked and raw and the doctors had no idea if it would recover. Skeletons were rare even to Monster doctors and didn’t have vocal chords. He never spoke higher than a whisper now and Edge didn’t know what they’d done to him.

“Yes, it is.” It was a statement of fact and Edge would leave if Stretch…if Papy wanted him to leave. He would walk out of this hospital and he’d already lost Papy once, months of not knowing, of searching and waiting. He could do it again. He’d survive, if only because they weren’t all dead. 

Not yet.

Clumsily, Papy shifted on the bed, the blankets rucking up around his hips as he crawled awkwardly over on trembling limbs. He was wearing his own pajamas, brought by Blue, but he still shivered a little in the chill of the room as he moved until he could wrap his arms around Edge. His grip tightened when Edge dragged the chair closer, let Papy pull him in even as he tried to tuck the blankets back around him. 

He was shaking, but not crying. He hadn’t cried since Edge found him.

Edge gave up on the blankets and hesitantly put his arms around him. When he wasn’t rebuffed, he pulled him in a little tighter. Careful of damaged bone, ready to draw away the moment that Stretch…that Papy had had enough. It wouldn’t take long, Edge knew, he could only stand to be held in brief moments. But he was here now. 

Slowly, Edge bowed his head and pressed the softest kiss against his skull, closed his sockets when he felt Papy flinch, though he didn’t pull away. Wetness seeped from his own sockets, stinging hot, and Edge could only sit there, his freshly gained LV still throbbing within him as he silently shed the tears that Papy couldn’t.

-fin


	2. Come and Get Your Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edge did not sleep deeply

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, there is no explicit non-con in this chapter or frankly, even mentioned. It's only implied as something in the past. 
> 
> Okay, so, normally I'm not bothered by my own writing. This story though, my mind wouldn't let go. I needed something else. I'm not a huge fan of the 'healing power of dick' for rape recovery stories, but in this case, my own trauma required more. So here is more.

* * *

Edge did not sleep deeply. He was far too accustomed to snatches of rest, to the sound of a threatening footsteps too close to him, and even now when he rested, he verged only on the borders of sleep, ready to wake at a sound.

He woke the moment the door open, almost silent on its hinges but the movement alone was enough to rouse him. Pale eye lights cut through the darkness, at a height that told him exactly who it was. 

“St—“ Edge almost didn’t bite it off quickly enough, habit caught up in sleepiness but the near mistake woke him up quickly. “Papy?”

“can i come in?” His voice was almost inaudible even in the nighttime hush. Quieter even than what passed for his new normal, though it had been getting better. 

Edge stifled the automatic response; 'it’s your room, too'. Papy had been staying with Blue since he’d left the hospital, in his own narrow bed. It had been his own choice, one of several his brother had offered him. It was important, Blue had told them all, that they allow Papy to make his own choices. Blue had gotten a stack of books on trauma and therapeutic responses, all of them carefully hidden away now. Edge might have read them himself if he'd been less afraid of what might be reflected back at him in the pages. 

For now, he followed Blue's direction. Having Papy show up at his door in the lateness of night was an outlier.

“Of course,” Edge sat up. “Did you need something?”

Papy didn't say anything, only slipped into the room on silent feet. When he sat on the bed, Edge moved back automatically, letting Papy climb beneath the blankets with him. Let him curl into his side, drawn in too small, only a light weight against him, pressed along his side. 

Edge swallowed hard, filled with uncertainty. This was not anything that he knew how to handle. 

"Did you have a bad dream?" Edge asked softly. It was more likely than not; he'd had plenty of nightmares when he'd first gotten home. Less often now, less likely to wake them all with hoarse, muffled screams; he was getting better, Edge knew, every day was a step forward, with only the occasional stumbling fall back. 

To his surprise, Papy shook his head and curled in tighter. "no. i woke up and missed you."

There was no good way to reply to that, no way to say that Edge had missed him, too. Missed waking up with Str…Papy in his arms, missed his careless smiles, missed so much of him. Even right now, he was here in Edge's arms and still, Edge missed him so desperately. There was no way to say that without deepening the rift between them, cutting open fresh wounds that were only starting to heal. Edge kept his silence. 

He expected Papy to pull away from him soon enough. Out of his arms but perhaps he'd only creep to the edge of the mattress and he'd stay the night? 

Instead, Edge almost flinched in surprise when teeth pressed to his own, a hesitant kiss. 

"Wait, wait," Edge managed between kisses. He could feel Papy trembling. "Papy—"

"i hate it when you call me that," Papy said, low and tremulous. "do you know that?"

"I—" Edge faltered. "I didn't know that. Do you…want me to call you something else?"

"call me by my name, stop tiptoeing around me like i'm going to break!"

"When I called you by your name, I hurt you," Edge said softly. Remembered wide eye lights and inadvertent fear.

"yeah, it did," Papy laughed, low and bitter. "you don't know…you can't…but do it anyway. call me by my name." There were healing cracks around his right socket, the opposite side of Edge's scars. 

Hands slipping beneath Edge's shirt and he caught them, held them still. "Wait."

"i want you to call me by my name," Papy ground out. His wrists flexed in Edge's grip and Edge let him pull away, watched silently as he wrapped his arms around himself. "i want to be able to let you touch me. i want to be able to fuck you. i’m tired of not being myself."

"I know. But you're not the only one who gets to say no."

It was the wrong thing to say. He could actually see Papy paling, the faint magic that flushed his skull draining. Quickly, Edge grabbed his shoulders before he could teleport, gently but firm enough to keep him from fleeing. “Hold on, I’m not saying no. I love you, of course I want you. You’re not forcing me to do anything, okay?”

A tiny nod, his clavicles flexing against Edge's grip.

Edge sighed and let his head drop forward until their foreheads bumped gently. "Love, there are miles between touching you and fucking."

Another shaky nod. "i know."

Edge exhaled slowly. Blue wouldn't need to kill him if this was a mistake. If this hurt Papy, if this set his recovery back, Edge was going to dust himself. "If you really want this, we can. But we start slow and I want a promise right now. If you want me to stop, you say stop. No grinning and bearing it, no enduring it to prove something. We stop and we try again later, if you want."

"i promise," a thin thread of sound, too low, and Edge almost called it off right then. Would have if Stretch hadn't crept forward, his slim hands cupping Edge's jaw as he nuzzled a shaky kiss against his teeth.

 _Please don't be a mistake._ "Can I touch you?"

Papy hesitated, then nodded.

"Love, I need you to say it."

"yes," so softly. Edge matched that softness, taking Papy's hand in his. He kissed every finger, every joint, followed the bones down to his wrists where the scars were fading. His sleeve was too tight to push past his forearm and Edge caught the hem of his shirt, hesitating there until Papy yanked it off himself with an impatient noise. 

The only sign of his captivity beneath it was a single cracked rib, the line of it healed but visible. Edge didn't know how it happened, didn't know if Blue knew, if anyone but Papy knew. He traced every rib, followed the glossy ivory of each one and forced himself not to linger on the crack. 

Followed one of his floating ribs to where it joined his vertebrae and Papy made a low sound. He was trembling, his sockets open and his eye lights wide. Almost, Edge stopped, almost pulled away, if Papy hadn't shifted to push his pajama pants down, wriggling them past his knees and kicking them off. 

His magic was formless, a soft orange cloud between his thighs and that was fine. This wasn’t about what had happened and he more than understood Papy's frustrations on how it had tainted seemingly every aspect of his life. If he wanted this, wanted the control to ask for this, Edge would give it to him.

Edge stroked his fingers delicately against the glowing orange, soft against his fingertips with a gentle give.

Papy made a sound, low and desperate.

"All right?" Edge asked softly

He nodded jerkily and before Edge could ask again rasped out, "yes."

Edge dragging his fingers against his pubic symphysis, that formless orange crowding around them, drawing tight then loosening into a bright haze. He'd never done anything quite like this, but then, what were genitals but a useless construct? They didn't need anything but the swirl of magic; they were as they were and Edge curled his fingers into that warmth, felt Papy quiver against him, burying his moans into Edge's sternum. 

"Is it good?" Edge whispered and his answer came in the form of a gentle gasp, of Papy shivering against him, coming without ever forming anything. His moans weren't like Edge remembered them, that sweetness lost into rasping need. 

"I don’t know what I can say to you," Edge told him softly, "I don’t know what words will hurt you."

"just tell me," Papy said desperately. "i don’t care, hurt me, i want to hear you."

"You’re beautiful," Edge said quietly. He watched for a reaction and there was nothing, no flinch, no cringing. "You’re so beautiful, I love you so much, Stretch."

"ooh, oh, ohhhh," softly shocked and Stretch shuddered again, both his hands still gripping Edge's wrists, not to hold him back, only to hold on as he shivered and came again. 

Stretch pulled away then, lying on his back, his eye lights unfocused up at the ceiling. "I did it," he whispered. "I liked it."

Tears trickled down, pale orange in the dimness, and Edge nearly wept himself. He couldn't bear for this to be another mistake, he couldn't bear to let Stretch be hurt again, he—

"no. no, it's all right." Stretch wiped the wetness away. "i just...i liked it." He hugged Edge suddenly, pressed full body against him.

"oh." Another surprised sound and Edge knew exactly what he'd felt; the heat of magic pooling between his own legs. "let me…?"

"Not tonight," Edge said softly. His soul was already agitated, his worries and fears tangled into his own desire and even if he'd been willing to start things, he'd never be able to finish. "Shh, I love you, it's all right. This is enough for tonight."

"all right," Stretch didn't protest, his hands falling away as Stretch inched closer to Edge. Still too tentative, but he curled against Edge, all his light weight tight against Edge's side. Edge pressed his teeth to the top of Stretch's skull. 

Nothing would be like before but that was all right. It would be all right.

-finis


End file.
